Cherokee Technology Center students are working to secure an Energy Star rating by building an energy efficient house. This international standard involves using energy efficient consumer products and smaller residential heating and cooling units to reduce energy consumption.

Habitat for Humanity is a Christian nonprofit organization that works to make home ownership a reality for local residents. The houses are sold at no profit and no interest to selected homeowners, who make low monthly house payments and must spend 300 volunteer hours to help build their new home.

Carpentry teacher Johnny Breitenbach estimates the future Habitat for Humanity homeowner could save as much as $50 a month on their utility bills in the energy efficient home being built by students.

“This is the first time our students have ever attempted to build an energy efficient house,” Breitenbach said. “This is a much tighter building plan where we have to do very specific things, like air sealing around windows to reduce the amount of outdoor air that goes into the home.”

The Cherokee Technology Center building trade classes have helped volunteers build houses for Habitat for Humanity since 2003.

“We are always looking for new things we can teach students to help prepare them to be successful in the construction industry,” Breitenbach said. “We wanted our students to learn how to build a more energy efficient house. This is a great education opportunity for our students.”

The house is expected to be ready for its energy rating inspection by the end of the month, Breitenbach said. The inspection will look at the home’s duct work, heating

and cooling systems, and overall

construction practices to determine

whether it meets the Environmental Protection Agency’s requirements for an Energy Star rating.

Devices carrying the Energy Star logo, such as houses, save energy consumption of between 20 and 30 percent.

“Our students are learning a valuable skill they will need for working in the construction business,” Breitenbach said. “There is going to be a great demand to build houses that are more energy efficient and environmentally friendly in the future.”

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By Nathaniel Cary • TRIBUNE-TIMES WRITER • March 18, 2009

Earlier this school year, a dedicated group of students interested in recycling started a drive to recycle phone books at Mauldin Middle School.
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It was part of the school’s second-year recycling program that started small but quickly built into an everyday routine for teachers and students.

Students competed by classroom to bring in the most phone books, and the school collected more than 4,500. The drive went so well that students began recycling batteries.

Then they collected old shoes, more than 150 pairs, which can be chopped up and reused as rubber mulch on playgrounds and tracks.

Their efforts did not go unnoticed.

The school was rewarded by the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, which named Mauldin Middle the state’s Recycling School of the Year.

Mauldin Middle’s recycling program started in force after Santee Cooper and Laurens Electric Co-op donated a solar panel that sits in the school’s courtyard. The panel provides electricity to power about two classrooms and has become a teaching tool and reminder to students that alternative energy solutions are available.

Gwendolynn Shealy, a seventh-grade science teacher who heads the recycling program, said the solar panel, named “Cooper,” redoubled the school’s recycling efforts.

“Having that at the school pushes them to understand that we have other sources of energy available. They’re going to have to solve these problems in the future that we have with our energy dependence on oil,” she said.

Now the school has a recycling group, the Go Green Group, that meets monthly to promote and plan recycling drives.

“It’s a group of people who want to change the Earth and want to help the environment,” said eighth-grader Kristina Nelson.

Each classroom at Mauldin Middle has a green recycling container for paper, and the Go Green Group collects the paper weekly. The school celebrated America Recycles Day and is planning activities for Earth Week in April.

“And if you’re a teacher, the kids will get on to you, too, if you throw something in the trash can,” Shealy said.

Seventh-graders Aaron French and Jake Delverde said students have caught on, especially when they’re offered prizes.

“You interest them with a prize, and so they get interested and it’s just an easy way to get them to start recycling,” French said.

The school added the state award to a 2008 Greenville County Solid Waste recycling school award, which Principal Rosia Gardner said reinforces to students that recycling is worth the effort.

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The state’s education system could be in line for $1 billion from the economic stimulus plan approved by the U.S. House of Representatives this week, including $627 million for K-12 school construction, programs for needy students and special education, according to estimates from the Congressional Research Service.

Greenville County Schools, the state’s largest district, could get an estimated $54.9 million over two years, if the legislation goes through as written, House documents show.

Anderson 1 would get $4.2 million, Pickens would get $9.9 million, Laurens 55 would have $4.7 million coming and Laurens 56 would receive $3.2 million.

Oconee would be slated for $6.9 million and Spartanburg 5 would get $3.7 million, under the estimates.

Greenville County Schools would get $18.7 million for school construction this year, plus an extra $8.5 million in Title 1 money for schools with high poverty levels, and $8.8 million from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for special education programs.

That comes to a total of $36 million this year to Greenville County Schools. The total for 2010 would be $18.9 million, including $8.5 million for Title 1 and $10.3 million for special education. No construction funds are listed for any district in 2010.

State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex said the Obama transition team asked all states’ chief school officers several weeks ago to submit a list of “shovel ready” projects. Rex polled all of South Carolina’s school districts.

With only 35 of the state’s more than 80 districts reporting, the requests already total four times the amount that’s likely to be available, according to Elizabeth Carpentier, deputy superintendent for innovation and support. As it stands now, the state would get $206 million for school construction projects, she said.

She hadn’t sorted through the district requests to determine which ones would qualify. The money can’t be used for athletic facilities, and 25 percent must go for “green projects,” she said.

Greenville, Pickens and Laurens county districts haven’t submitted their requests yet, according to her worksheet.

Among projects on the wish list so far:

* Oconee asked for $750,000 for a roof replacement at Ravenel Elementary and $2 million for a new roof at Seneca High.

* Anderson 1 submitted a request for $85.7 million for “various” construction projects. Anderson 4 asked for $1.5 million for “a much needed roof restoration.”

* Spartanburg 4 put in for money for a variety of projects at Woodruff high, middle and elementary schools. Greenwood 51 listed projects at Ware Shoals High, Junior High, Elementary and Primary schools.

Such a big infusion of cash would help with the state’s school facility needs but wouldn’t solve its long-term money problems, which requires overhauling the education funding system, Rex said.

“It would be temporary, but if we can get these reforms under way that we were talking about (in the state Legislature) it might make the bridge from here to there a little less painful than we had originally thought it would be,” Rex said. “It’ll help, but it’ll be a short-term positive effect.”

A 2007 survey indicated a $3.3 billion shortfall in funding for school facility needs statewide, according to the state Department of Education.

In addition to the money for the K-12 system, the state would get $82.7 million for higher education repair and modernization, $15.5 million for education technology, $36 million for child care development grants, $9.9 million for Head Start, and $253.1 million in Pell grants, according to House figures. 

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